Switzerland’s third largest city – Basel – is on the River Rhine where the French, German and Swiss borders all meet.
I took the train in to Basel Badischer Bahnhof – the German railway station within Basel. Here, I changed to the S6 Basel S-Bahn line to Basel SBB – the Swiss railway station.
Back in Switzerland now, and I quickly sourced some Swiss Francs so that I could put my luggage in one of the lockers.
Switzerland is definitely more expensive than Germany; the locker was almost double what I paid in Freiburg and a 1 hour ticket for the tram as much as a 24 hour ticket in Freiburg.
Luggage safely locked up and I headed in to the city. My visit on Thursday was brief; this one was brief too but I had time to do things, so I boarded a tram and headed up to the Marktplatz – the Market Place.
In the fading light I’m afraid my photos weren’t that great!
From here I walked up the street to find the river – the Rhine which runs through the centre of the city.
I’m not sure what the occasion was, but there were lots of marching bands everywhere. The tram kept getting stuck behind them.
I found the river at the Mittlere Brücke bridge, and watched three marching bands go by in quick succession. One was playing Beatles songs (Yellow Submarine and When I’m Sixty-Four). Later, on the tram back to the station, I passed one which was playing It’s A Long Way To Tipporary.
Here’s the video of one of the bands crossing the bridge.
Time was getting on by this stage and I needed to make my way back to my luggage and make a move.
I returned to the Airport, checked my bag in, and flew back to the UK, bringing an end my third trip to Germany in the last year.
My next trip to Germany will be in May; I will be going to Schleswig-Holstein to broadcast my radio show live from Cirencester’s twin town, Itzehoe.
FH.
